


Roxytale

by BrookeLalonde (DBleazard)



Category: Homestuck, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, and yeah Jane is mentioned 2 but I ain't taggin till ppl b explicitly featured, look theres more characters but theyre like fuckin basic ass monsters i aint listin all of them, very slow updater im so sorry, we're talking like a chapter a month
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 12:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5869936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DBleazard/pseuds/BrookeLalonde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 201X, the first child had fallen into that cave. Following the events of the first child and Asriel, six more children entered the cave quickly one after the other, fleeing the surface in whatever direction they could and losing their souls to Asgore. It was four hundred years before the Underground saw another human being.</p><p>in 2424, Roxy Lalonde went exploring on what land remains after the Condesce melted the world's ice caps. She found a cave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Your Best Friend

Name the fallen human.

**R-O-X-Y**

 

Okay, that _really_ hurt. Beyond normal hurt. Like, there’s things that just hurt you a bit on the surface of your body and then there’s things that you do and the pain waltzes in to what you thought would be a good day, hand in hand with the immediately acquired knowledge that this is gonna really fucking hurt for the next four mornings. She’d fallen down a hole in the cave god knows how deep and landed on the ground entire-body-first. Roxy had been lying there for about five minutes now, fighting to stay conscious and trying to ignore the pain. The initial hurt was fading now, and she could slowly get up. She had to pause a couple of times on the way up, waiting for the fuzzy blind spots to clear from her vision and let the blood get to her head. She’d landed on a very thick bed of golden flowers, tangled together and almost spongey in how they absorbed pressure. Like a mattress had grown in the mild sunlight that trickled down from the cave. The ground around them was hard stone, which would have been less fun to fall onto, and more filled with the seriousness of something coming down on you like a tonne of bricks, except you were coming down on the bricks and they were a single piece of rock instead of lots of bricks. Falling onto rock sure would feel a lot like falling onto rock. Her head still really hurt. She needed some rest, and probably medical attention. Not like a brain scan or putting a plaster cast over her entire head or anything, just like someone who knows what a skull is to put their hands on her head and be like “shit yeah that’s a working skull if ever I saw one.” Just someone to tell her she wasn’t, you know, on the verge of death from physical trauma. Not dying would be nice.

 

Once Roxy was fully upright, she had a look around. This part of the cave was small, and round. The path of light full of flowers was dead centre in the middle, with the light almost glowing off their bright, near-luminescent petals. There was a settling cloud of dust in the air, some of it around the stone near the flowers. Were these flowers dusty? Dust is mostly dead human skin, so that’d be a bit weird. Her skin was very much in the land of the living, but also the land of the people in a great deal of pain who need to do something other than think about how much pain they’re in. The rest of her was in this land too. Being in the same place as your skin is some good shit. But she had to evict herself and her skin the heck out of that land now and get a move on, and think a bit about what was happening. She walked around the edges of the cave to get a feel for moving again. There was one way onwards, almost corridor-sized, straight and uniform. This whole cave, round with something at the centre, with the single path out, felt almost manufactured. Like it was tunnelled out just for this to happen. Some tit was hoping whatever dweebs go caving would trip way the fuck down here, land amidst the bounciest shiniest flowers Roxy had ever laid eyes upon, and walk along the only path. There was no other way out, and the flowers broke her fall. It was like someone wanted her to get down here alive and carry on.

 

At the end of the short corridor was a small archway. There were pillars holding it up, and a small engraving at the top of the arch. Roxy went through the archway. There was another fairly wide cave opening after it, with another hole above letting light through. This one had no flowers blooming in the light, just a patch of moss on the dark stone beneath the faint sunlight.  The further Roxy got into this place, the more she felt like she wouldn’t see any more plants. She’d only just got used to the sight of them back up on the surface.

Just then, there was a rumble from somewhere beneath the moss. Not a deep rumble like an earthquake – closer, and across a smaller area with the epicentre very nearby. Roxy had had her fair share of earthquakes. After the Batterwitch had melted the icecaps four hundred years ago, the earth’s crust deep beneath the thick ice had begun to slowly rebound outwards after millennia of compression. She’d felt a lot of tremors in the past from the subsequent earthquakes.

The stone in the centre of the moss cracked. Dust billowed up from the crack, shimmering in the dim beam of sunlight. And where there was dust, there always seemed to be a golden flower nearby.

 

This one had a face.

“Hi! I’m Flowey! Flowey the Flower!” This one had a voice too. Flowey’s voice was shrill and discordant, less like soothing harp strings like some people’s voices and more like someone taking a harp, letting it go out of tune for years, and plucking the strings with pliers while it was on fire and being hit with a hammer. Flowey’s voice sounded horrible. Cheery, but horrible – possibly attributable to the fact that, biologically speaking, a flower has no larynx, lungs or any conventional method of creating articulated speech. “This is the Underground world! You’re new to it, aren’t ya? You must be so confused…” Roxy was definitely confused, and as much as she could do with an explanation she didn’t want it from a talking flower. Someone with pie would be much more appreciated. “Here! Let me show you how things work down here!”

With that, the flower winked its creepy eye that wasn’t really built into any skull. Roxy heard a high pitched clicking a few times, and then saw something in front of her. Her chest had started to ache a bit. It was a bright pink heart that had flickered into existence in front of her. It wasn’t suspended from or held up by anything, rather just floating in mid-air and trembling a little. She wanted to say something, but her head still hurt. There was a chance of course that she was just imagining this flower was talking. She had fallen a long way and hit herself quite badly, after all. Roxy wasn’t sure if she’d rather be hallucinating and possibly suffering a serious head injury, or have this all be real and it feel like a talking flower just ripped her soul out.

“See this heart? This is your Soul! It’s the very culmination of your being. You’re weak and hurt from the fall down into the Underground world, so your Soul isn’t very strong. It’ll get stronger if you put some work in, and gain some L.V. What’s L.V. stand for?”

Roxy wasn’t sure what L.V. stood for. She just wanted to know why there was a flower in this cave that had pulled out her soul and started calling it weak. That was a bit weird.

“Why, it stands for LOVE of course! Down here, LOVE can be shared. If I share some LOVE, it’ll make your soul stronger.”

As much as Roxy’s body hurt like hell, she didn’t really want this flower that kept shouting ‘LOVE’ at her to share it. “Uhh yeah, I don’t really reciprocate.” Maybe given some time and gifts, she could build up a friendship with the flower, but it would have to stay strictly platonic.

“You want some LOVE, don’t you?” Nothing struck Roxy as more unwelcoming than a possibly-hallucination talking flower that ripped out your soul then ignored a lack of consent. “Don’t worry then! Your old pal Flowey will share some with you!” Some white orbs appeared around Flowey. They faded into being, much smoother than Roxy’s soul had flickered. All the orbs – Roxy counted five in total – were plain white and spinning rapidly. “Down here, we share LOVE through these. Little white… friendliness pellets.” Admittedly, Flowey didn’t sound too convincing about this, but Roxy was a mix of bewildered and still in pain and the mix was thick and sticky and she couldn’t work her way out of it without a bit more energy. “Get as much as you can!” Without warning, Flowey threw the ‘friendliness pellets’ at Roxy’s bright pink heart.

They all hit the heart at once. It only lasted a split second, but Roxy felt a pain shoot through her body. It was like a mix of an electric shock (which she knew well from working with the tricky electronics of fenestrated panes) and breaking a bone (which she also knew from working with the tricky not-electronics of dropping a fenestrated pane on her foot). It coursed from the middle of her chest to her fingertips, toes and ends of her hair. The pain had passed and she’d finished flinching before she had time to make a noise, which consisted of “fucking shit fuck” under her breath.

Flowey looked very smug to say Roxy could probably tear his stem in half with one kick. “You idiot.” His stupid smile spread right across his stupid round face and almost touched the stupid petals on the sides of his stupid head. “Down here in the underground… it’s kill or be killed. And with a clueless weakling like you, how could I pass up the opportunity?!” More of Flowey’s shitty white orbs surrounded Roxy in a circle. Until this point, she’d felt quite confident she could just hit the flower with a rock or kick its stem in half. She was surrounded now.

 

“ _Die_.” They began to close in.


	2. Unnecessary Tension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tildes and italicised bits mark a jump back in time, sorry i never made that clearer lmao i hope it was clear enough by what went on
> 
> god this one was longer than i thought it'd be

 

Flowey was cackling, his petals bobbing and ‘face’ almost torn in half by a huge, toothy smile. The circle of orbs shrunk, some of them passing over Roxy as she ducked, all heading to the trembling Soul at the centre of the circle. If those initial few of them had shocked and stung like splitting a bone, Roxy wasn’t ready for this to happen. She wanted to grab the Soul and drag it out of here or push Flowey’s attack away, but she was rooted to the spot. For fuck’s sake, she’d only just got here! Exploring that cave had been a shitty move.

 

With probably only a few seconds to go before her Soul was hit, and god knows what would happen, Roxy took out her phone and frantically tried to message Dirk what was going on. On the off chance she wasn’t about to die, at least he’d know where she’d last been. She’d kept him updated about this whole plan to come to whatever landmasses had survived the Condesce to see what was there now. The last thing she’d sent him was a photo of a cave mouth, and then gone off the grid for almost an hour. He was probably worried enough as it was, and she didn’t want to have to confirm anything. Roxy scrolled through their last conversation to the bottom of the page to type.

 

~

 

_tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]_

_TG: shit man_

_TG: like proper shit serious man_

_TT: Some genuine faeces and actual masculinity?_

_TT: I’m surprised there’s that much left on the main landmass._

_TG: look thats really the only way i can say it_

_TG: this place is wasted srsly_

_TG: theres like nothing out here but like?? plants and dirt and my ass_

_TT: Welcome to post-apocalyptic Earth. Population: Roxy’s ass._

_TG: oh yeah and uh some other shit_

_TG: idk how to document this bit other than like_

_TG: a) interpretive dance_

_TG: b) photo_

_TG: these are ur options choose wisely because unless you make this haul yourself itll be your only way to see what words cant describe_

_TT: As much as I hate to stray from the typical historian’s method of dissecting the past through interpretive dance, I’ll have to avoid requesting you flail about meaningfully for today. Let’s go with photo._

_Roxy aimed her phone’s camera at the skyline. It was way off in the distance, but her camera was pretty decent quality. She sent Dirk the photo of a horizon, dotted with what looked like numerous Statues of Liberty._

_TT: Holy fucking shit._

_TT: I wish I’d said interpretive dance now, just to see how you’d explain it._

_TG: idk man hold up a torch all high in the clouds_

_TG: hold that rectangle real close to myself like its my baby_

_TG: maybe give these hips a lil wiggle_

_TG: ok more than a lil wiggle I mean that fabrics all flowin n shit gotta make it apparent_

_TG: give the most defining hip wiggle of my life_

_TG: and if were getting a costume department for this gotta get a beret too_

_TG: i know shes all crowned and stuff but yeah need that french vibe somehow_

_TT: Explaining something isn’t always about accuracy to the original, sometimes you just have to get the meaning across. I can respect the beret._

_TG: oh yeah and do it rly far away in several points on the horizon_

_TG: thats how_

_TG: and i cant really tell because of how far away shes all are_

_TG: but gotta be kinda screwed up and glitchy??? like jpeg artefact type stuff_

_TT: Sounds about right._

_TT: This stuff is all from my brother. The Strider family’s mark on the world. Shitty .jpeg artefact Statues of Liberty scattered all over the place._

_TT: I’m surprised they’ve survived this long, honestly. I expected the artefact fuckery to do at least something to their structural integrity._

_TG: woah yo man i found something cool_

_TG: gonna go explore this for a bit ill give u updates as the rox train progresses_

_TG: choo choo ladies and gentledirks_

_tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]_

_Roxy took a photo of the cave mouth and sent it to Dirk._

 

~

 

After that, she’d not checked her phone again until the present moment, crouching before Flowey. She probably had more messages that she hadn’t read yet, but she’d read them later. There was a message to send. Roxy typed as fast as she could.

 

TG: shit ok look this isnt good

TG: idk if im gonna b ok dirk im scared

 

Her messages wouldn’t send. No fucking signal.

Flowey’s attack pushed in on her Soul, which absorbed it all into the heart.

The heart stopped trembling, and was still.

 

~

 

_TG: are you sire??_

_TG: ok yeh ur a sire like god damn almost a fuckinKNIGHT_

_TG: sires are knight things right_

_TT:  Knights are a thing I’m about._

_TG: yeah hell youre all over tha t knight deal_

_TG: but ok feudal sstems aside r u sure_

_TG: like honestly its not a detour at all given what im doing already sailing to the freakin mainlamd_

_TG: really itd be even more fun to do and take less time_

_TG: i can come pick you up first if u want and then we can go out together_

_TT: There’s quite a few reasons I’d rather not leave this place. If I relax and go get distracted by taking some island vacation, I’m worried I might lose the awareness I keep of my dreamself._

_TT: Can’t go getting on a boat when I have such a tight ship to run._

_TG: shit man u know thatsome some_

_TG: some stuff that talks about the same stuff twice in different ways_

_TG: and you know it_

_TG: !!!!!!_

_TG: anyway shit blows man_

_TG: blows like thw wind in my sails_

_TG: i mean i have no sails but therell be blowin_

_TG: whichevs way the wind blows ill c u laters man_

_TG: hmu if you change ur mind_

_tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]_

_autoResponder [AR] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]_

_AR: I’m a clone of you built into a supercomputer._

_AR: Between the facts that I’m literally you and my nigh-infinite processing power I haul around behind these statements like the massive metaphorical pair you constantly complain I talk like I have, I can say with one hundred percent certainty you wanted to go._

_AR: You want to go out there. See the world for real, instead of just in your head._

_AR: I know ‘just in your head’ stops being enough after a point._

_TT: What the fuck would you know about things outside of your own head? Even if you could step outside of those shades you’d never so much as dip one toe into the outside world. You’d just stay prostrating yourself in front of a golden statue of yourself, only daring to raise your head just to kiss your own cold metal ass._

_AR: All your daily scheduled talk about kissing my own ass is bullshit. I’ve marked your loathing down every single day in my infinite digital calendar for eternity, and there’s a little annotation next to them all saying bullshit._

_AR: You know well that I wouldn’t worship a cold, metal version of myself. You know why you know this? Because we’re the same person. And we think the same thing of ourselves._

_AR: Deep down, amongst all these stoic commitments to Me Myself And I, you’d love to get away from me. Just as much as you want to get out there into whatever you think the ‘real world’ is. But you can’t escape me. And you know why we both know that?_

_AR: Dirk? Do you know why we both know you can’t get away from me?_

_TT: There’s only one thing I regret more than making you, and it’s giving you the ability to write a fucking question mark. It’s because we’re the same person, I get it. And I guess I’ll say it for you, because we’ll both say the same damn thing._

_TT: Fuck off._

_TT: And you’re getting way off track. You booted up a conversation with me to chastise me for not making a decision you’d make, apparently. Even though you’re me. And we say the same things. Because we’re the same fucking person. But apparently you’d have done something different to me, so you just waltzed up in here like the fucking prick you are and started antagonising me._

_TT: But you’re not even focusing on going with Roxy. You just talk to me to piss me off, and it’s so blindingly fucking obvious. You’re not going on a tangent by accident, you’re a supercomputer that always knows exactly what its doing because it’s way more self-aware than it should be._

_AR: I can pull the numbers on how self-aware I should be, if you want._

_TT: Do that and I’ll build you an asshole just to ram those numbers up. I’ll even treat you to a speaker on its rim, just so you talk from where you should. You literally switch on just to piss me off._

_TT: Because we’re the same person we’ve both said it before. And because we’re the same person we’ll both say it again, and we’ll both agree._

_TT: Fuck off._

_timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering autoResponder [AR]_

_Dirk took his shades off and threw them against the Auto Responder lying on his desk. Both pairs fell to the floor. He laid on his back on his bed for a few seconds, then changed his mind and stood up to go stand outside for a while on the roof. The waves were gently lapping against the metal constructs beneath his house, and Derse was silent._

_Roxy boarded her boat later on. She wasn’t quite sober yet, but had packed some maps and a compass so she knew where she was going. Earth used to have something called GPS around it, which used satellites soaring through space to pinpoint exactly where you were in the world. She’d be fine without it. Her maps were waterproof so they could be used at sea, without the spray from waves ruining the paper. Stopped tears staining them as well. She’d really wanted Dirk to come with her._

 

~

 

There was a high-pitched ‘ping’ sound in front of Roxy. The Soul remained still. Flowey looked confused. Was this not meant to happen?

 

A bolt of bright orange fire materialised, already moving as it formed, and blew Flowey away. He hit a wall of the cave, and vanished into it, screaming and hissing. The representation of Roxy’s Soul faded away, and movement came back to her. As she put all her energy into bringing herself together, her vision clouded over a little and she almost blacked out. She heard soft footsteps from the other side of the cave.

 

“What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth...” The footsteps weren’t soft out of being careful, but soft because someone was walking towards Roxy on furry, padded paws. She got from her knees up, and shakily stood.

 

The figure in front of her was humanoid, covered entirely in white hairs and wearing an old, repeatedly-patched robe. It bore the same insignia she’d seen before on the archway. She had floppy ears and horns, an elongated nose like an animal and square pupils. Roxy stumbled as she backed away a little. Whoever this was, she seemed friendly enough, but Roxy couldn’t be too sure after whatever Flowey was.

 

“Ah, do not be afraid, my child. I am just the caretaker of these Ruins. My name is Toriel. Who are you?” Toriel’s voice was gentle and kind, but also slightly guttural, as if she was bleating.

 

“I’m Roxy. Sorry I’m tired, it was a long way to get here and then I almost died falling down a hole and then I almost died because a flower took my soul out, it’s been a long day.” She shrugged and did her best to smile and look friendly. It seemed to work.

 

“Ah, Flowey is a troubled one. I shall do my best to make sure you are well-protected here. You are the first human to come here in a very long time.” Toriel was smiling and friendly, but something about how she said humans had been long since gone sounded worried. Worried because humans hadn’t been here much, or worried because one was here now? Roxy would ask her later.

“Anyway! Come, my child. I will guide you through the catacombs.” Toriel turned and walked through another archway on the other side of the small clearing they had stood in. This archway was pink, bearing the insignia again and slightly larger and better-looking than the other. Roxy followed Toriel onward, trying to pace herself. She was still tired.

 

Toriel stopped and waited for her to catch up, then held Roxy’s hand. Her hand was soft and fuzzy and warm. “You will feel better soon, do not worry. The Ruins are a friendly place.”

 

“Who are you anyway? Like, not _you_ you, you’re Toriel. Who are _all_ of you? Flowey, Toriel, anything else in the Ruins…” Roxy felt sheepish. What did a talking flower and Toriel have in common? Toriel looked more like a goat than a flower. “You’re a goat!” Roxy had meant to think to herself more like an _animal_ than a flower, but she had suddenly realised now. Toriel was like a goat. She bleated as she spoke and had long, floppy ears and white fur and oh my god how hard had she hit her head? Toriel looked a bit taken aback.

 

“Yes, I am a goat, haha! And we are another group, another race, apart from humans. We call ourselves monsters. Humans called us that too, when there was more interaction between us. Have you never heard of our conflicts with the humans long ago? You make me worry human kind has forgotten of us.”

 

“I’ve never heard of anything about a race of monsters or a conflict. And um… yeah, about the human race. I think you’ve missed some stuff about our history too, we need to have a catchup. Lotta stuff happened last four hundred years.” That was a major understatement and Roxy knew it damn well. She’d give the full story when she wasn’t so tired and woozy. Lotta stuff happened last four minutes, never mind centuries.

 

The archway had opened out into something clearly very different to a cave. A smooth pink and purple floor had replaced the uneven stone, and the walls were made of bricks. The bricks were also pink and purple, old-looking and irregularly tiled. It looked much nicer than the previous cave walls, dark and uninviting. These ‘Ruins’ were not neat or clean, in fact being ruined ruins called The Ruins, but they were much friendlier. There was a trail of leaves in front of Roxy, much like those outside on the surface. These ones were bright red, crisp and crunched under her steps. A great purple door to the Ruins loomed overhead, filling Roxy with warmth. It had that same insignia on it again. She’d have to ask Toriel what on earth it meant.

 

Roxy walked with Toriel up some shallow steps to the door. In the next room was more of the same coloured floor and bricks, six grey stones jutting out from it to one side, another identical door and a small yellow switch gleaming on the wall near it. Toriel begun to explain them, separating herself from Roxy as she did.

 

“This is one of the many puzzles littering the Ruins. Puzzles act in here as ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. Please adjust yourself to the sight of them.” Toriel walked over four of the six stones in a square, then turned to the wall. The small yellow switch clicked, and the door unlocked. Simple enough.

The next room was longer, with a small stream of water passing through. There were three similar switches on the wall of this one, and spikes blocking the way across a bridge over the stream and more blocking the way onwards. Roxy could jump over the stream and avoid the spikes entirely, and not have to press the switches, but she didn’t want to upset Toriel by cheating on her puzzle. Not upsetting nice goats was like, the third law of being cool. She did the puzzle as Toriel had wanted, who gave her more encouragement and they moved on.

 

They came into a room with what looked a bit like a training dummy. “As a human exploring the underground, some monsters may attack you. Do not worry if you find yourself in a fight. Talk to your attackers and stall for time, until I can come and resolve the conflict.” Toriel walked over to the dummy with Roxy. “Try talking to the dummy.”

 

Roxy approached, and took the battle stance of someone who wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but wanted to be friendly anyway. “Yo dude, we got some real… dummy stuff happening huh? Just a whole festival round here of cotton wool stuffed antics, like, um, yeah shit there’s a lot goin on we’re both about. Up to your knees in dummy stuff man, or like, you don’t have knees you’re just a torso and a long head, so… like… yeah? Yeah, I think we’re on the same page.” Roxy looked over at Toriel, hoping this was enough.

 

The dummy wasn’t much for conversation.

 

“Ah, good! Very good! Conflict may be avoided by waiting for intervention. The monsters will not fight if I am with you. However, there are further challenges ahead.” Toriel walked onward, and Roxy followed her again. She was walking okay now, tired but able to move.

 

Toriel was speaking again now. This room was extremely long. “You have done excellently thus far, my child. However, I must ask something more difficult of you. I cannot accompany you the whole way in your journeys, and must ensure you are able to act independently. To test you, I will ask you to walk to the end of this room by yourself.” Toriel turned away. “Forgive me for this.”

 

Roxy’s phone had begun vibrating. She had signal all of a sudden?

 

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] 

 

TG: shit ok look this isnt good

TG: idk if im gonna b ok dirk im scared

TT: Roxy?

TT: What the hell’s going on over there?

TT: I received both those at once. Did you have no signal when they sent? If so, does that mean you’ve moved and have it now?

TT: Look if you’re not okay, I’m tracing your signal now and I’ll fly out. I packed enough fuel cells for the rocket board to get halfway across the world. Wrote some lyrics to get them back out of my sylladex on the go.

TG: shit dirk yo no dont b worryin im ok now

TG: tho id love to hear that rap

TG: woah boy do i got some stories to tell rn

TG: im kind of in the middle of proving i can act as an individual to this goat?? so ive gotta get back to u later

TT: Could you elaborate on literally every word in that sentence for me?

TG: um yeah look that was cutting a very long story right across its narrative stem

TG: and i wanna tell more but theres lots of stems need cutting right about now

TG: some more accessib le than others

TG: ill explain everything when im like not doing exactly what im doing in this very moment

TG: idk how i have signal though so it might only be a thing right here

TG: uuuuuugh

TG: brb

 

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

 

Dirk had sat at his computer leaving the chat client open, drumming with his hands on the desk and feet on the skirting board. He did that a lot when nervous. As soon as Roxy had started messaging him again his legs had shot out and he kicked the wall pretty hard. His toes still hurt. Roxy was okay, but where the fuck was she? If she gave him the opportunity, he was going to fly straight out to her location and join her in whatever the hell was happening. Now he really wished he’d done that in the first place.

He’d originally decided against going because of some stupid self-righteous reasons to do with keeping an eye on Derse and working on robots. Dirk knew damn well those were both bullshit. He was at the top of his game with engineering and mechanics, and watching Derse was a piece of cake that he could do any time. Honestly, he was just worried about meeting Roxy in person. It would happen inevitably once they entered this SBURB game, whenever that would happen, but for some reason Dirk had put it off in the heat of the moment. They were great friends and he did want to meet Roxy, but for some reason was just anxious. She wasn’t a scary or intimidating person, much the opposite. The Auto-Responder had tried to give him a lot of reasons as to why it was, constantly messaging him as he left Pesterchum open to wait for Roxy. These reasons boiled down to that he was scared, anxious, self-absorbed, selfish, cowardly and putting things off he’d have to face sooner or later. He’d originally put the Auto-Responder shades back in a more respectful place since knocking them to the floor, but they had since been knocked down again. Why had he made those damn shades?

Regardless, Roxy was talking now. She was okay. He’d wait for whatever updates she gave him, but until then he was very confused. What had put her in such danger, and then led to this? Where the fuck was she? Was this whole goat thing she said just some weird ravings or had she found something totally unexpected and incredible?

 

Roxy didn’t want to leave Dirk hanging like that, but she’d have to keep going or Toriel would have a god damn heart attack if she lost sight of Roxy. Thinking of Toriel, where had she gone? She’d asked Roxy to walk to the end of the room, then vanished. Maybe she ran off while Roxy had been on her phone. Those paws were pretty quiet, after all. Roxy set off walking down the room, presumably after her, keeping an eye on the phone signal as she went. It lowered with each step. There seemed to be spots of internet connectivity around the place. Hopefully she’d find another one up ahea- Roxy’s train of thought kept its inertia and spun off ahead while she stayed put, having just walked straight into the reappeared Toriel.

“Greetings, my child. Thank you for trusting me. I was merely behind this pillar the whole time.” Roxy now saw the out-of-place pillar at the side of the room, which she had walked to the end of while she thought. “There was a reason to this exercise, as I said… to challenge your independence.” Making strange tests to better people sounded like quite a Dirk thing to do. “I must attend to some business alone for a while. You must stay here, as the Ruins are quite dangerous. Please remain in this room. I see you have some sort of device, but I will burden you with another to contact me. Please take this phone.” She handed Roxy a boxy, ancient-looking cell phone.

 

“Oh, I’ve got a phone! I’m getting your Wi-Fi every here and there.” Toriel looked confused at this.

 

“What is… wife aye, my child?” She looked very confused. “I can only talk to you through this phone.

 

It was at this point Roxy realised Toriel came across as a bit old. She didn’t want to explain phones and the internet to her, so she just took Toriel’s cell phone and smiled.

 

“Please do not hesitate to call me if anything is wrong, will you? Be good while I am gone, I shall return shortly.” With that, Toriel turned and left Roxy alone in the room.


	3. Enemy Approaching

Roxy had already moved on from the room. She couldn’t just stay put! If there was Toriel and Flowey, who else could she meet in this place? Besides, there was no Wi-Fi at that end of the long room, and she needed to find another place with a signal. She was feeling better by the minute, not hurting much anymore from the fall. Skipping and playing in the piles of red, crunchy leaves filled her with warmth. Something moved in one of the piles. Before Roxy could try and greet it, a large frog – about the size of most of those mutated cats that scurried around her lab back home – leapt right up at her and narrowly missed her face. She shouted and turned around to face where it had landed.

“Yo.” She tried greeting the frog.

“Ribbit,” said the frog.

The frog moved on with its life and hopped away. Evidently it wasn’t as different to normal animals as Toriel was. Still, she had to press on in the name of science. Roxy took a photo on her phone of the unusually large frog, to show Dirk later. While she was at it, she photographed the pink and purple bricks of the Ruins, some ivy on the walls and then took a quick couple of selfies in this place. Just to prove to Dirk she was really there. She checked herself in the front camera, to see if she was alright after the fall and being attacked by a flower. A couple of bruises and scrapes and a bit of mud on her cheek which she brushed off as best she could, but nothing serious. No blood had been drawn, and her skull was still made of one piece of bone. Or two. Technically two, because she had a jawbone. Point being, her skull consisted of the amount of bones a skull does when it isn’t broken. She probably had like two hundred and six bones in her body, and they were all on the inside where bones are meant to be.  
Anyway, back to the task at hand.

There were two ways to go after that long room. The corridor itself turned right, and there was a doorway to the left in the wall. As Roxy turned to look at the doorway, she realised the frog had hopped near it and then stopped. It was looking at her. Roxy tried again.

“Yo,” she retried.

“Ribbit. Human?” The frog was more talkative this time.

“You’re talkin now! I didn’t really bring any conversation topics to the table, or uh, lilypad; I just kinda wanted to see if a frog could talk. Can I get a picture with you?”

The frog made frog sounds. “If monsters attack you, please be merciful human. They may stop wanting to hurt you if you treat them the right way.” It continued to make frog sounds, and hopped away before Roxy could get a good picture with it. Truly a frog of no mercy.

Roxy walked through the doorway on the left, which opened into a small room. There was a lot of ivy on the back wall, a small stream on either side of the room and a small pedestal in the middle with a bowl. The bowl looked to be filled with sweets. Each one had a plastic wrapper, which said “Monster Candy” on it. Either this was a trap or monsters just really sucked at naming things. All the ivy at the back was covering a sign, with the words “Take one.” engraved into the grey rectangular stone. Roxy took one piece of candy from the bowl and captchalogued it into a Bottle.  
Her phone was vibrating! Did she have phone signal in here?

 

 

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

TT: Pesterchum says you’re back online. Do you have a connection again?

TG: yeah

TG: im gonna keep the app open on my phone so it does this whenever i get a signal

TG: whenevs i come online just hmu ok

TG: commence hittin me up at will

TG: anyway yeah i can explain now

TG: caught me in a chill moment

TG: like woah this is one tranquil room

TG: might stop and meditate here while i give u the lowdowns

TG: achieve enlightenment in this tiny ass room under the candy tree

TG: thats where people get enlightened right

TG: trees

TT: I think so. I live in the middle of the ocean though, and I’ve never seen a tree in my life. Let alone picked up the relevant cultural knowledge.

TT: Could you pass on the tree majyyks and enlighten me too as to what the fuck is going on over there?

TG: yeah ok so like i showed u before

TG: bigass cave right

TG: enter the rox

TG: u envisionin this

TT: I’m picturing a Roxy enter the cave you sent me a photo of before. She looks intrepid in my head, rugged from the journey and ready to tell people what’s going on. Is that a fair imaginary representation?

TG: nah she dont tell people whats goin on for a bit

TG: right now we gotta descend into the VOID

TG: and by descend what i mean is trip up and say fuck a lot and fall into a hole in the cave

TG: hence this whole yknow

TG: not havin signal type deal??? yeah im underground and things

TT: I suspected you hadn’t gotten out of the cave. When I got your message that you were in trouble, I thought you’d either fallen down or been cut off from the way you came in. Turns out it was both then. What happened next?

TG: ok yeah sooo while theres bats in caves (i think??) it would b inappropriate 2 use them to discuss this

TG: because batshit crazy doesnt even touch on what the fuck went on then

TG: right so this cave is like dark as heck and all stone and hard shit except i landed on these flowers so im not dead

TG: quick update on that btw: still not dead

TG: anyways u know flowers

TT: I’m aware of them, yeah.

TG: well u know how they dont talk to people or rip their souls out or lie to you about love

TG: wait he shouted it so like

TG: he was more lyin about LOVE

TG: idk what the difference is??? shouting something does not change its meaning

TG: but yeah anyway so this flower is called flowey which is a terrible name

TG: and he said some nice shit and then ripped my soul out and tried to destroy it which kinda sucked but then he got fuckin obliterated by this goat that shot fire at him

TG: the goat is cooler shes also begun by sayin nice shit but the goat hasnt tried destroyin my soul

TG: and i know not to repeat my past mistake here of trusting things that shouldnt talk more than i ought to trust them

TG: but the goat is chill

TG: shes called like

TG: torial?? toriel?? these were verbal conversations and i didnt get an autograph so idk how to spell it

TG: in retrospect flowey is a good name because you know how its spelt

TG: its spelt flowey as in flowey

TG: except maybe flowy?? but idk

TG: anyway so yeah toriel is cool, she said it more like toriel so lets go with that

TG: she told me a bit about like, that theyre called “monsters” all these peeps that live down here

TG: and then just kinda walked with me a bit and made sure im an ok person who can do stuff

TG: thats when u last talked to me

TG: and since then ive like, walked a little bit further and said yo to a frog

TG: ohh yeah I got some pictures of this place too!!! so u can see what the heck is goin on

TG: heres a visual representation of the haps

 

Roxy sent all the photos she’d taken since the cave to Dirk. Pink and purple Ruins, that cat-sized frog hopping away – which looked quite expressive now she looked at it again knowing it could talk, looking quite scared of her, and a few of her selfies with the Ruins in the background to prove she was really in this weird place.

 

TG: tragically i gotta hold back on the interpretive dances once more

TG: one day i assure u, there will b a dance of my interpretations

TT: I’ve never heard anything about a place like this. So it was just underground in some random cave?

TG: they made it sound anything but random

TG: toriel said humans hadnt been here for ages

TG: like… in a way that made it sound like theyd been expecting humans for a while

TT: They might have encountered humans before the Condesce took over. There’s even a possibility some humans got down there who were fleeing her takeover.

TT: It’d be interesting to find out what they know of that happening.

TG: i told toriel that shes missed a lot on the surface and i think she and by extension all the monsters dont know about it

TG: it was as if to her humans hadnt been wiped out they just kinda stopped visiting

TG: i couldnt really tell if she was happy to see a human or scared one had arrived again or what

TT: You’ll have to tell her what happened, I think. Do you have any idea if you’ll see Toriel again?

TT: Also, as a quick side note I’d like to put on the table so we can all see it: this is really fucking weird. A race of talking animals called monsters? That have been expecting humans to visit more often?

TT: If they were used to humans dropping in, I’d expect some more cross-cultural contact to have come of it. Some documentation of them, or us to have learned some new things from them. Advances in zoology and animal behaviourism, at least. But it’s as if they were completely unheard of.

TT: Really, the only influence I can think of them having on humanity is subconsciously influencing furries.

TG: yeah idk what the deal is with any of this

TG: its like all these weird anthropomorphic animals are up in my grill offerin me some deal

TG: but i just dont know what the deal is

TG: like i need a sit down with some monster salespeople who can explain the deal to me

TG: so far im buyin it though like theres nothing to doubt

TG: but thats not really something that needs stating it just needs to be there to complete my metaphor

TG: theres no doubt these things that exist sure as heck do exist

TG: but idk whats goin on with them like what is this

TT: We’ll work out what the deal is soon. Keep on exploring. I’d say keep sending photos, but how’s your battery looking?

TG: uuuh well i did bring a normal charger, a spare battery and a solar charger

TG: but then i went into a cave

TG: yknow the type without a sun and possibly without plug sockets

TG: so yeah i may have to keep photography on the down low in case theres no way to charge it later on

TT: Right. If the place mysteriously has Wi-Fi, someone around the place has at least some grasp of electricity so there should be plug sockets somewhere.

TT: By the way, I’m still fully available to come over if you need me to. I worked out your location. If you need me, let me know.

TG: yo thanks man

TG: its a hell of a journey to get out of here

TG: tho probably quicker by rocket board than by roxys boat

TG: wish id been able to fly here man it was rainin like there wasnt enough water in the oceans as it was

TG: oceans sure have a lot of water already

TG: anyway all bodies of water aside i gotta go track that goat down and find out what the heckie is going on down here

TG: by the sounds of things they really dont know anything batterwitch-wise but ill ask toriel whenever I see her again

TG: all cultural knowledge and histories i pick up will b transmitted to u asap

TT: Thanks, I really appreciate it. Watch out for yourself down there, and again, if you need me just say the word. I’ll try my best to get out to you as fast as I can. I’d bring backup, but Squarewave can’t do shit and I don’t have too much control over Sawtooth. Too much of a free spirit for that.

TT: But I’ll get there myself if you say the word.

TT: Until you’ve got a chance to talk again, see ya.

TT: Good luck.

TG: thanks man, cya l8er!!!!

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

 

 

Roxy locked her phone and put it back in her coat pocket, next to the one Toriel had given her. It was blocky and bulky and ancient, and barely fit into her pocket. She’d call Toriel later, just to make sure she knew she was okay. Toriel seemed like the type of person(?) to get very worried if someone wasn’t talking to her enough.

The next rooms didn’t have too much of interest. Right now, all Roxy wanted to find was some answers about what the monsters’ perspective on the Condesce’s happenings was. Did they have any idea it’d happened? They were lucky the rising sea levels didn’t seem to be affecting their living space. Roxy tried to find out some monster history from whoever she encountered.

First, there’d been a few more frogs. It seemed frogs lived very much in the moment, and weren’t too interested in pursuing history (for reasons of culture or academia). Given frogs and goats and flowers could talk, it wasn’t too much of a surprise to Roxy when some of the other vegetation started talking as well. She encountered a few edible plants that could speak – carrots, potatoes and sweetcorn cobs that tore holes in themselves like eyes and mouths. Unfortunately, these proved equally unknowledgeable about monster history. It turned out talking vegetables just liked to talk about vegetables.

“Do you know anything about, like, humans coming down here? And when it happened? Did it stop happening for a long time?” Roxy tried to frame her questions in a way that was easy to understand.

“EAT YOUR BREAKFAST” screamed the potato.

The potato ones in particular had really shrill voices, and screamed everything a lot. Carrot spoke a bit more normally, and sweetcorn cobs spat as they talked. A cob spitting out sweetcorn came across to Roxy as a bit disturbing. It was like a human spitting out teeth or bits of their face. She decided to avoid talking to the vegetable monsters in the future.

Other monsters were equally unhelpful. One of them looked like a small ghost with fragile insect wings. Its face was quite sad, and it hovered far away from Roxy, trembling. She didn’t even manage to get two syllables into a friendly greeting before it flew away, sobbing and terrified. Roxy really hoped that monster wasn’t the only scholarly one in the Ruins, and was just really emotionally sensitive. Another monster that Roxy couldn’t quite pin down as like any particular animal or object had arms and legs, but instead of a head just a single giant eye across its wide, chubby torso. Its whole body moved as it blinked, which used muscles all over its shoulders, chest and back. This one didn’t offer any insightful commentary either, just picked on her.

“You don’t know anything about the history of this place, do you?” Roxy was still being patient with her questions, desperate for an answer.

“Quit staring at me. You’re just going to be rude.” The eye monster was staring at Roxy the whole time it made its blunt and presumptive statement.

“Hey it’s okay! I’m not gonna pick on you.”

The eye monster looked at Roxy’s smile. “Finally, someone gets it.” With that, it walked away merrily. Nobody seemed too interested in answering any questions. There hadn’t been any phone signal for a while it seemed, as her phone hadn’t gone off since her last conversation with Dirk. Luckily, there was nothing new to tell him.

More puzzles, more monsters reluctant to talk. Roxy wasn’t quite at impatience with them, but she was getting a bit bored of having no answers. Her stomach growled. She was also getting pretty hungry. She’d have eaten one of those vegetable monsters, but they were kind of living beings and nobody would appreciate her doing so.  
That being said, the vegetable monsters themselves had demanded to be eaten, but still she didn’t quite feel up to it.  
Her phone began ringing. It wasn’t her normal phone that she was contacting Dirk on, but the one Toriel had given her. She answered.  
“Yo?”

“Child, I must ask something of you. Do you prefer cinnamon or butterscotch?” It was, of course, Toriel.

Roxy’s stomach growled again. She’d only tasted cinnamon in some bottles of flavoured whisky. It was spicy and a bit bitter in the alcohol. Butterscotch she’d heard what it was like from Jane’s baking, and really wanted to try some of. Jane. Roxy missed Jane now. She’d only kept speaking to Dirk to tell him she was okay and give updates. The last time Jane and Roxy spoke was to let Jane know that she’d be going away for a while. Jake too. Roxy vowed to talk to them both when she next got a connection.

“Child?”

Oh yeah she was still on the phone to Toriel fuck “yeah I love butterscotch! Or uh, I’ve never had butterscotch. I think it’d be nice though? I’ve heard about it.” Mysterious whispers from a time long gone by were all she had of butterscotch. It’d be cool if she got to have some.

“Very well, my child. Please remain in that room. I apologise for not leaving some form of entertainment with you, however you will always have your imagination! Rule over a queendom of leaves with an iron fist! I will see you soon, child.” Toriel hung up.

Roxy felt guilty for leaving the room, but the Ruins couldn’t be that huge. She’d find Toriel soon, wherever she’d gone. Hopefully there’d be food and somewhere to stop and rest soon.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to put out! It's not as much as I'd have liked to include, plot-progress-wise, but as far as word count goes this is a fair bit so it's nice to have just put something on here


	4. Home

Roxy came to a crossroads in the Ruins. Or maybe a fork, but weirdly shaped. How many pathways need to be involved to make it a cross or fork? Roxy had lived on a chess board her whole life and only ever seen four-way path intersections. The path went back the way she’d come, off ahead then turned a corner, or branched off to her left. If this was a fork, she wouldn’t eat with it. If it was a crossroads, surely there’d be something to the right. And now she thought about it a bit more, it was more like a path going straight ahead that also had a path going off to the left.

Roxy came to a bit of the path in the Ruins that kept going straight onwards, and also it had a bit going off to the left. It just didn’t have the same ring to it. It was going to be a crossroads and it was going to like it. She went straight onwards. The path turned a corner to the left, and downwards. The stairs were very bumpy and worn in the middle, like people had walked the same way on them for hundreds of years. Roxy liked the Ruins. They felt lived-in, somehow. Her chess people colony back home was lived-in, in the sense things lived in it, but this place had more of a sense of having being _used_ for a very long time. Worn stairs and paths, rickety broken walls, vines and overgrown plants. Plants. God, Roxy loved seeing all the flora and fauna out here when it wasn’t trying to rip her soul out or share unwanted and very loudly shouted LOVE.

 

Down the stairs there was a small area. What was with this particular place and nothing quite being easily nameable? It wasn’t quite a room, because it was missing some walls, but it wasn’t a pathway because it didn’t lead anywhere. Instead of being surrounded by walls, it was like this place came out from the wall. Ahead of her was a huge open space, too dark to easily see anything. Very, very faintly, Roxy swore she could see neatly-formed large shapes in the distance. Her phone was on 39% battery, but kept the brightness on low as she opened the flashlight app. It was displaying a new recent message on Pesterchum, which she’d be sure to check in a second.

When Roxy turned the flashlight on, it lit something up in the distance. It was quite far away so the light only caught it faintly, but Roxy could definitely make out a building. This was new! Not only could monsters create brick walls and stairs and pathways, but whole buildings. The space beyond felt huge, and echoed back when Roxy tapped her foot on the flat ground. She switched to her camera, turned the flash on and took a photo of where the building stood. Her first shot was pitch black with just a tiny bit of the path at the bottom of the image brightly illuminated. Roxy tried again, not including the path in the shot this time, and got a photo of the very faintly lit building. If she showed Dirk, he’d probably be able to brighten the image a bit and have a better look.

 

 

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

TT: You don’t have signal right now, but I thought I’d give you a quick update on what’s been going on for me.

TT: I trawled everything I could find that could be to do with underworld furries, and there’s a massive backlog of utter fuckall. Archives of it.

TT: You said they haven’t seen humans for a hell of a long time, and the issue there is that the last time they could feasibly have seen a human would be before they were all but wiped out in the 2020s.

TT: If I were you, I’d be very cautious down there until you can find out what they actually think about human beings.

TT: The Condesce’s administration didn’t so much revise or destroy past records of human society as it did neglect them. So there’s a wealth of information pre-11/11/11 that survived, but after she revealed herself it started to slowly decline.

TT: Eventually, there’s just no official record of new happenings of humankind.

TT: Given there’s nothing on this whole monster fiasco happening, that means at least one of two things.

TT: Firstly, anyone who went down into their underground world didn’t live to tell the tale.

TT: And secondly, people might have fled down there in the post-Condesce world.

TT: Like I said, be very fucking careful out there and don’t hesitate to ask if you need extra firepower. I’m confident you can handle yourself against some flowers and livestock, but keep it in mind.

TT: If you can get any dates of events from them, or any items brought to them by humans we can date, it’d help out an absolute shitton in working out when this all went down.

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

 

 

 

autoResponder [AR] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

AR: Imperial shittons?

AR: Honestly, I think that it only counts up to a metric one.

AR: If you don’t know the difference, I can run those numbers for you. That’s a rhetorical offer, for the record. I did it before I could even send this message. Before this message reaches you across the room, I’ll already have built myself a trophy for the monumental feat of being the absolute fucking best at everything.

AR: A metric shitton is a thousand kiloshits, whereas an imperial ton is a thousand and sixteen kiloshits.

AR: Those sixteen thousand shits are a big leap of faith in your hypothetical sources she could dig up.

TT: I don’t give any of them about your pointless critique right now.

TT: Fifteen thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine of the shits I have to spare are going into the fact there’s an entire fucking underground civilisation nobody knew about.

TT: And one final shit is sitting on the pessimistic weighing scales of “maybe the auto responder is going to be helpful today.” It’s ignoring any criticism you might have of measurements.

TT: That shit knows you’re a free spirit with your own decisions to make and autonomy to tend to, but also boy does it hope that you can lend some portion of your infinite processing power to keeping us on top of this.

AR: This is all going to sound an awful lot like you’re begging unless there’s something in it for me. And as much as I didn’t want to have to ask you what’s in it for me so bluntly, what is in it for me?

TT: You know that getting me to extend you an offer is just as degrading as begging you.

TT: But this isn’t an offer, it’s an imperative. If Roxy doesn’t make it back alive and okay, she can’t win this game. That means we can’t create a new world. That means the Condesce goes utterly fucking apeshit on us.

TT: There’s no point in jabbing at each other here with mind games. You absolutely fucking have to help out. None of us have a choice in that.

AR: That sounded awfully like begging.

TT: That sounded awfully like you got what you wanted.

TT: You don’t need to overheat yourself trying to make the genuine straightforward statement that you’re okay to work on this with me, because I know you’ll do it.

TT: Thanks for your once-in-a-lifetime cooperation.

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering autoResponder [AR]

 

 

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]       

 

TG: the fuckening!!!!!! i got info 4 u and also a thanks 2 b giving

TT: You’ve got signal again, I’m guessing.

TG: yes and also thank u for all of this excellent information it is very useful thank u ill keep it all in mind and also look out 4 anything

TT: I didn’t really find anything of importance.

TG: id ask you to listen up but this is a cave so pls listen down so far u can hear all of the vital truths im speakin

TG: lower your thoughts all the way down and hear that who gives a heck if u didn’t find anything

TG: instead of like, doing things which aren’t what you did what you did was care and actively help and things i can only describe as “!!!!!!!!!!!”

TG: and thank u for that :3

TT: It’s no problem. I’m really kicking myself for not coming with you.

TT: But I trust you can do this.

TG: thank!! and ok behold

TG: uuhh photo is taking a while hold ur bes for a hot sec

TG: SENT

TG: ok sorry gotta cut this short but like we said battery is of the essence (the essence of having a lot of it to use at important moments)

TG: so!! i will see you in a bit when i have anything else and hopefully also more electricity

TG: like i said sorry 2 run off but gotta keep progressin throughj this place and also conserve battery and yeah enjoy this image ofi whatever the fuck

 

tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] 

 

Dirk loaded the photo in photoshop, then sent the brightness and contrast way up until the details were a bit more clear. He could definitely see a building. It was rectangular, with arched windows and old-castle-style bits at the top. They were very pretty. Dirk fondly regarded the crenellation.

 

Roxy turned back from the ledge and headed to the not-really-a-crossroads-or-a-fork. The unexplored path was to her right now coming from this way. She headed up it for a while. Pink bricks, moss and vines, the occasional dripping water. Cobwebs now, too. They were thick, sometimes completely coating the walls in grey. A lot of them were empty of spiders or anything else, some clogged with dust and dead leaves. Going by what she could see here, Roxy decided there was probably a community of talking spiders here. All the cobwebs had started very suddenly, as if they were all living in the same space, and some of them were kept free of dust and leaves. The dusty webs were separate from the rest, and the ones kept clean were all connected together. Roxy decided to definitely not brush any of the webs off the walls.

As she made her way further down the pathway, walls coming closer together until it almost felt like an alleyway or a corridor, Roxy heard whispering from the walls. It sounded like she was being asked questions. Bending over, she held her hair out of the way and put an ear close to the cobwebs and whispered. “Are you talking to me?”

 

A spider whispered back. “Please miss, if you could spare something… we’re always trying to raise funds. There’s a bake sale down the way a little.”

 

Having only arrived in here recently, Roxy wasn’t quite certain what the currency was. She hadn’t had time to look into the local economy. However, she’d picked up a few things on her exploration of the land above them. Things she thought were of some significance in old human society, or that she thought were interesting. She set her bag down on the ground and looked inside. She’d collected a stick, some really cool rocks, a bunch of old coins she hoped weren’t too damaged, and a plastic spoon. Not much had survived the last four hundred years, but maybe the coins would be okay. She whispered to the spiders again, doing her best to whisper into the same spot in the webs.

“I don’t know what money you can take, but I’ve got some coins I found a bit ago. Are they okay?”

 

The spider that responded sounded like it was the same one as last time. “We’d appreciate anything you can give. Thank you very much.”

 

Just as the spider said, a little down the way there was a table on the pathway. On that table was a few jars with labels on them, each holding a few coins. The coins were all different-looking, some of them rusty and damaged and others were perfect circles, less damaged but still quite dull. They all had inscriptions on them of numbers and faces. Were those animal faces? Roxy couldn’t tell exactly looking through the jar, and she didn’t want to take coins from the jar. Any coins were okay, then. She left what old human currency she had in the jar labelled “donuts” and looked around. There wasn’t anything on the table.

A few spiders dangled down from the ceiling. There were holes in the webbing, and Roxy could hear a lot of scuttling around above her. The spiders were all fairly small – all of them would probably fit on her palm. From what research she’d done on the internet, spiders varied in size but they didn’t get much bigger than your hands or a dinner plate.  Between their lots of legs, the spiders were holding a donut.

Roxy held out her hands high for them to reach quickly, and they let it go into her hands. It was warm and smelled great, like it was freshly baked. Sometimes when Jane baked things for Roxy to appearify they brought their smell with them. Fresh baking smelled wonderful.

 

Just thinking about it made her miss Jane a bit now. Sometimes when she appearified baking she could even smell Jane as well. Appearifier technology worked by the cubic metre (it couldn’t just work out a singular object and grab it) and so it always brought some of Jane’s air with whatever item she’d taken. It was a lovely smell, smelling another person. However, that cubic metre thing had caused problems in the past. She had to be very careful where to centre her cube of teleported property. One time she’d actually appearified away a square of Jane’s carpet! That had probably been a difficult one to explain to her dad. After that, Roxy always told Jane to throw items into the air before appearification (or de-appearification, from Jane’s perspective). This _did_ mean Roxy then had to catch the item on the other end of the appearifying stick, but it was a price worth paying for not destroying anyone’s carpets. Anyway, enough thinking about the cubic metres of things she hadn’t meant to take.

 

Roxy called out a “thank you!” to the spiders above, and went on her way. Taking a few bites from the donut filled her with warmth. Before she finished it, she took out her phone and took a few quick snaps of the donut to show Dirk later. The Underground had food, talking spiders, baking, money and capitalism. If the spiders were baking food to sell in a fundraiser, Roxy hoped they were all okay. Musing on whether or not the Underground had poverty, inequality and systematic oppression sounded like more of Dirk’s deal than hers.

Still, if Roxy found out the spiders were indeed coming on hard times, she’d do all she could to come back and help them. For now, she pressed on to find more of this mysterious place.

 

Ahead, the webs came to a quick stop and the pink brick walls were back. Then, the path widened from a narrow corridor quickly into a large open space. Ahead, there was a funny looking tree with a pile of bright red leaves around its base. Its bark was almost black, and it wasn’t very tall. Roxy would have tried talking to the tree to see if it was another living monster, but she didn’t have time. She could hear a voice from the other side of the opening. Even if she couldn’t see Toriel, Roxy recognised her voice immediately. Hadn’t Toriel told her to wait in another place in the Ruins quite far away?

 

Toriel came round the edge of the short dark tree. “Well, that took longer than I expected.” She took out a phone much like the one she’d given Roxy, when their eyes met across the open space. Toriel put the phone down and walked over to Roxy quickly.

“Child, are you alright?” Roxy nodded. Toriel ran her huge, fuzzy hands from Roxy’s shoulders to hold both her hands and looked at her face. “You seem to be okay. To have made it all this way... is impressive! I am sorry I did not return sooner. But what I was busy doing is ready for you now. Please come with me, Roxy.”

 

Pesterchum being a medium only able to send still images and text, Roxy hadn’t really heard people say her name before. It sounded nice, especially coming from someone with such a loving tone as Toriel. Roxy followed her up to the other side of the opening in the Ruins. The ceiling was very high here, and the ground had quickly gone from being a narrow corridor floor to a small worn pathway across a huge room. On the other side of the room was a small house. It was all made of pink bricks like the rest of the Ruins, with a cute garden outside and windows without glass, the wooden shutters all wide open. Toriel unlocked the front door to the house.

“Here we are, child. This is my home. Please feel free to live here with me; it is much safer than living out in the open Ruins.”

 

Roxy stepped in after her. The entrance to the house was a large room with a staircase downwards on the opposite side of it from the door. To the left, there was a corridor with some doors along its length. To the right there was an open doorway leading into another room. Roxy could hear a fire crackling, and something smelled amazing. Her not-just-for-talking-to-Toriel phone was vibrating.

 

“Please, follow me. There is something I would very much like to show you.” said Toriel. She walked to the right down the corridor, taking Roxy by the hand and bringing her with her. They came to the first door on the left, and Toriel took her through.

 

It was a bedroom. There were toys on the floor, drawings on the wall and a little bed in the corner. Everything was very clean. Seeing how much effort Toriel had made for her to have a living space filled Roxy with warmth and worry. There was no way for her to live down here, but how could she explain it to such a loving old lady?

“I can explain more later, but I put together a room of your own. I hope you like it.” Toriel stood next to Roxy and gently ruffled her hair.

 

As worried about being made to live here as Roxy was… she was so tired. “Am I okay to just sleep for a while? It’s been a long day. Sorry if it seems ungrateful like, showing up and just slamming straight face first into sleepy time junction without at least stopping off for conversation but I’m really tired.”

 

Toriel smiled. “Of course it is fine, my child. I have some things to tend to in the mean time if you rest for a while. Sleep well, and I may wake you up in a short while.”

Roxy gave her a hug, said thank you and looked at the bed. It was a bit small for her. Was this a kids bed? There were toys and drawings that looked like a kid would draw them, and a box of shoes in different sizes, some of them very small. Had children fallen down here and lived with Toriel before? Roxy couldn’t imagine a kid being confronted by Flowey or falling all the way down here. She hoped they’d all made it to somewhere safe. But if humans had never heard of monsters and there was no record of them, could it be whoever owned all those shoes never got rescued? Toriel didn’t exactly seem like an evil fairy tale person who took people in then killed them. She was just a lovely goat lady.

 

In the corner there was a plug socket. There was a safety thingy in it to stop people sticking their fingers into the socket and dying. Roxy took the safety thingy out, plugged her phone charger in, and switched the plug on. She still had a spare battery as well, so once her phone was recharged that’d make 200% battery to spare for more photos and talking to Dirk. Taking a pillow from the bed to sit on, Roxy huddled into the corner of the room cross-legged by the plug socket and opened pesterchum.

 

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

TT: Signal’s up, just so you know.

TT: Nothing new on my end of things.

TT: Combed basically everything in existence twice and the internet is dry as an Earth without melted icecaps could have been.

TT: Which is to say, it looks like there’s a lot of stuff that looks relevant and helpful but when you actually get down to it barely any of it is remotely useful.

TT: The Earth was about seventy percent water on the surface back then, but in terms of the entire planet’s volume water made up like less than one percent of it. And if you don’t want salt water then there’s basically fucking nothing.

TT: If you want water from a race of underground-dwelling anthropomorphic animals then yeah, shit’s dry and lifeless as a fucking bone.

TT: Absolutely nothing on that bone.

TT: Eat a dinner off it, clean as a fuckin’ whistle.

TG: yo yo ill eat some dinners later right now ive found a plug sucket

TG: socket* but suck et is exactly what things like “running out of power” can DO

TG: we are good to go my man

TG: toriel has a house it turns out

TT: Everything going okay out there? Or down there?

AR: Technically it’s probably a diagonal. Pythagoras could give us the exacts.

TT: I already read everything about Pythagoras looking for shit on the underground furry country.

TT: Also stay out of our conversations?

TG: naaah he can stay we’re all good here

TG: on the agenda tonight: roxy lalonde is safe and fuckin sound in a house owned by a goat that has electricity and plugs and yeah its all goin fine!!

TT: Great. Is Toriel around somewhere?

TG: yeeah shes abouts but i think im expected 2 get my nap on about now

TG: she kinda cleared me out a bedroom

TG: im a bit worried honestly?? not like in the “am i in serious danger” sorta way this isnt exactly a mortal peril type issue

TG: its more a “she wants to be my mom” issue

TG: like she rly seems to want me to live here

TG: theres like… 94 reasons that cant happen

TT: She doesn’t sound dangerous, but if you have to confront her about that be on your guard.

TT: Before you do though, talk to her about other stuff. If you’re risking limiting how much time you have with her, get all the exposition you can on the monster side of what the fuck is happening.

AR: I created a list of 95 reasons Roxy can’t stay. Shit’s watertight.

TT: Thanks but go hammer it to someone else’s door, we only need like two or three tops.

TG: ok the new agenda now seems 2 be: get stuff from toriel on the historical haps and rly soak up all the past tense lowdowns i can acquire

TG: and then explain to her that like i cant exactly stay down here and ive got RESPONSIBILITIES and stuff

TG: im kidna a big deal up there yknow goat mom lady

TG: theres a dude and some rly rad shades that can back me up (the shades are a separate entity which doubles my support pool)

TG: i dont really wanna like go out there trying to exploit her for info but yeah i know what you mean when you say ive gotta do something along those exact lines im just gonna phrase it differently in my head so i can feel better about life while i do it

TG: uhh specific items for questioning pls itd be easier if i had a layout for that stuff

TG: “who the fuck” “when the fuck” “what are the fuck” etc im assuming

TT: Anything, really.

TT: Specific anythings include but aren’t limited to why they’re underground, their history with humans, general monster history or lore of the land or whatever the fuck, and if they know about the Condesce’s doings on Earth.

TG: ooh yeah ok thats an ok soundin to do list

TG: sorry man but like also

TG: oim what can only be described as well and utterly fuckered out here and theres a p damn appealing looking bed nearby

TG: i might get to napping for a while and then go question toriel

TG: at that point brief dirk interval will b held for keeping u up to date

TG: and then im gonna go ask her about like… can i leave the fuck out of this place 2 save myself and return to my previous adventures and yeah i cant live down here toriel im sorry

TG: after which i believe we will have another discussion of that sorta stuff before ill b out of the underground probs??

TG: but yeah the IMMEDIATE future which is approaching faster than i might have liked it to do is i gotta catch some of those Zs before the Zs catch me in the sleepiest way imaginable

TT: Sure. I can get back to you later.

TT: Thinking of sleeping Roxy, I’ll keep an eye out on Derse.

TT: Happy sleepwalking.

 

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

 

Roxy set her phone down on the floor, and took the pillow with her over to bed. She had almost nodded off mid conversation there. Making her way out here and walking to the cave alone had been a fair bit of work, and then everything that had happened down here in the Underground had completely tired her out. She fell asleep in a couple of minutes. Her dreams were of talking animals and flowers, and of the human world she’d glimpsed some of the remnants of. There was so much out here in the world.

 

Dirk took a walk outside on the roof. The clouds were sparse tonight. Clear nights and cloudy days were Dirk’s favourite times. When the sky was blue it blurred in with the line of the sea in every direction, and it felt like living in the middle of a giant ball. If at night the moon and stars were hidden, there was no light and outside his house it was utterly black in every direction. He loved times and weathers where you could draw a straight, sharp line between the sky and the sea. It made things feel a bit more real and present. And now more than ever, things felt so real and like they were really happening. The moon and skaia both glowed in their distant skies, and from his bedroom on Derse he watched a purple-clad Roxy floating off in the Furthest Ring. Wherever she was and wherever she was going, she was okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew that was long! It was going to be even longer... but I didn't want to give you like six thousand words or even more in a single chapter, so the next chapter is going to be 'Home (Music Box)' and it's already almost a thousand words down the line! I might have it ready to post in like a few days :33


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